Remarks and Observations Directed at the Clouds

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This is another installment of my Observations and Remarks Directed at the Clouds project. A brief one. The odd thing about blogs is that they only work well if readers read every post as it is posted. Or if each post is completely unrelated to the others. Otherwise, you end up reading the posts backwards, and then have to make sense of them. Since I doubt that anyone reads this blog as each post is posted, I thought I’d just take a moment in the short post to bring anyone interested up to speed on what the current series of post is all about.

As I mentioned, in the first post of this series, that I’m not currently writing any fiction – the stories I’m considering writing have yet to jell to the point were I can confidently know that I can write them right to their end. And with that being the case, and with time on my hands, I decided to write a series of opinion pieces on various subjects. The first entries in this series, below, are on TV shows – one bad one, and a bunch of good ones, finishing up with the best in the post below. (Crash Landing on You).

My upcoming entry in this series will be a review of Martha Wells’ All Systems Red Murderbot novella. It’s been out now for something like four years, and I’m sure that just about everyone who would be interested in it, has read it. Still I am just now getting around to reading it – because it’s price was right. Free. This past week Tor.com gave away ebook copies of all four novellas in the series to promote Wells’ upcoming Murderbot novel. So with the price being right, I picked them up and will share my opinion of the first of them.

I have to admit that I don’t think I’m very good at writing these essays and reviews But, on the theory that practice makes perfect, I’m planning to continue to try my hand at it, on whatever subject I have a strong opinion about, especially the ones that I think the world should pay attention to. But wont. (“That’s a joke, son.”)

So here is a brief teaser of my upcoming All Systems Red review.

All Systems Red, by Martha Wells, is the first of four novellas feathering the SecUnit who calls itself Murderbot. It won the 2017 Nebula and Hugo Awards for best novella.

I am not much of a reader of contemporary science fiction, or indeed of science fiction from any era these days. I have a wall of books, but except for a few authors I know I like, I only sample a couple of books a year these days. So, given my limited exposure to modern science fiction, and as someone who writes stories as well, what do I think of All Systems Red?

It was okay.

Damned by faint praise.

To be continued….